NHS 'Could Be Used to Supply Addicts' Durham Chief Urges Policy Revolution One of England's most senior police officers has called for class-A drugs to be decriminalised and for the policy of outright prohibition to be radically revised. In a dramatic move that will reignite the debate over the so-called war on drugs, Mike Barton, Durham's chief constable, has suggested that the NHS could supply drugs to addicts, breaking the monopoly and income stream of criminal gangs. [continues 688 words]
Gangland wars have turned Dublin into the Chicago of the 21st century, a TD and chairman of a drugs task force in the Irish capital said last night. Labour TD Joe Costello also revealed that a preliminary study by the Inner City Drugs Task Force has found that a majority of drug dealers arrested on serious offences were out on bail. Costello made his remarks following two more gangland-related murders in north Dublin this weekend. Gardai have launched a murder investigation following the fatal shooting of a 33-year-old man in Finglas early yesterday. The victim was named as Trevor Walsh, from Valley Park Road in Finglas. He had been serving a three-year prison sentence for possession of firearms, but was let out on temporary release on Thursday. [continues 387 words]
The death of Katy French, the model and socialite who had publicly battled cocaine addiction, highlights the widespread consumption of the drug in post-Celtic tiger Ireland, according to doctors and police. It is popular not only with rich celebrities but also the affluent middle class, they say, and it's never been cheaper. A controversial new book on the subject, High Society, includes interviews with a wide range of Irish professionals, including an alleged interview with an Irish government minister, all of whom confess to regular cocaine abuse. [continues 486 words]
Nuns, Lawyers and Businessmen With Drug Habits 'Will Remain Anonymous' The author of a controversial book in which an Irish government minister allegedly admits to being a regular cocaine user vowed this weekend she would rather be arrested than reveal his identity. For almost a month Justine Delaney Wilson has been at the centre of a political storm because of what the minister is supposed to have revealed to her in Buswell's Hotel just across the road from Dail Eireann. The furore has gripped the Irish Republic, with an entire nation playing guessing games over the minister's identity. [continues 662 words]
Police Study Reveals Violent Football Fans Use Drug to Increase Aggression Abuse of drugs, principally cocaine, is fuelling an unprecedented upsurge in soccer hooliganism in the Irish Republic, according to a new study. A report to be published this week in the Garda Review, the magazine of the Garda Representative Association, highlights the use of drugs by hooligans who want to get 'fired up' before games. Inspector Tony Gallagher from Fitzgibbon Street in Dublin, the garda station in charge of security both at Bohemian FC's Dalymount Park and Croke Park, headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association, said of the hooligans: 'We believe they are taking cocaine, which is exaggerating the aggression. They are using drugs to get the psyche right for aggression and violence against rival groups. [continues 326 words]
As Hoodlums Invade the Paramilitaries' Turf, the Tarring and Feathering of an Alleged Drug Dealer in Belfast, Cheered on by Locals, Signals a Return to Vigilante 'Policing'. Henry Mcdonald Reports In broad daylight, close to one of Belfast's busiest, trendiest quarters, they staged a brazen 'arrest' operation. Jock Nelson was stopped, searched and, his captors said, was found to be carrying up to six bags of crack cocaine. Although he was 'released' after the drugs were allegedly seized, Nelson's time on 'remand' was shortlived. Forty-eight hours after he was confronted on Belfast's Bradbury Place the alleged drug dealer suffered a humiliating punishment. [continues 1509 words]
A Recent Bust In The 'Irish Box' Shows Drug Smugglers Are Ruling Over The Cork Shore It is known as the 'Irish box' - 7,500 miles of water and coastline stretching from the republic's Atlantic seaboard around to Dublin in the east. Vast expanses of these waters are subject to freak and often rapid weather changes that, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration, make them 'nearly impossible to patrol' and an ideal launch pad for drug smugglers to penetrate the lucrative UK market. [continues 1506 words]
An Anglo-Irish naval task force should be deployed to combat a new drug-smuggling scheme that uses satellite technology, opposition parties have demanded. Irish criminals living abroad are sending cargo ships to drop off huge watertight containers of heroin and cocaine in the Irish Sea. The drug barons then pinpoint the location of the dumped cargo in shallow waters off the east cost with Global Positioning Systems technology. These GPS co-ordinates are transmitted to couriers in Ireland who set off on fishing vessels and speedboats to pick up the containers, which are then taken to rural coastal areas. [continues 336 words]
Muddled Thinking Over Drug Use In Prisons Will Help The Criminals Is there anyone in either the Dail or the Seannad with the courage and imagination of British Liberal Democrat Chris Davies? The Welsh MEP raised a row in the UK when he suggested that perhaps it was time to rethink the Western world's policy on drugs. Davies put forward the idea long advocated by libertarians that legalising all narcotics would drastically slash the profits of drug smugglers and dealers while reducing crime rates caused by addicts prepared to pay astronomical prices for their fix. [continues 738 words]
It is Time to End a Dangerous and Unwinnable War I was having lunch last week with a senior member of the Garda Siochana or Irish police in Dublin. He is a man with 32 years of service fighting crime in the Irish capital. Throughout his career he has witnessed three major drug waves in the Irish Republic - the first heroin epidemic of 1980; the explosion of ecstasy and cocaine use in the mid 1990s and now the introduction of crack cocaine at the start of the 21st century. He is a superintendent with some major successes under his belt including the operation against John Gilligan, the drugs baron who ordered the murder of my colleague, the reporter Veronica Guerin. He has seen millions of pounds of euros in drugs seizures. But the officer was highly modest about the scale of his achievements in the fight against drugs. [continues 869 words]
New evidence has been uncovered to link the Provisional IRA with a terrorist group involved in the Colombian drugs trade, according to a leading figure in the United States Congress. Democrat William Delahunt, who heads the congressional investigation into the role of the IRA in Colombia, has also revealed that the CIA is to be asked to give evidence about the republicans' connection with Farc, the Marxist guerrilla group involved in producing cocaine and heroin. Three Irishmen - two of them convicted IRA members, the other a Sinn Fein activist - were arrested in Bogotá while trying to leave Colombia on 11 August. [continues 435 words]
It's Time That We Took Cannabis, Heroin And Ecstasy Out Of The Hands Of The Criminals Irving Welsh and Danny Boyle got it all wrong. Most junkies, pace Welsh's novel and Boyle's film Trainspotting, are crashing bores. Some of the most soul destroying afternoons and evenings of my life were spent in the company of druggies. Far from the smack-chic of Renton, Sick Boy and Spud, Trainspotting's anti-heroes, the wasted days in dingy basements off Dublin's North Circular Road or that flat-cum-latrine in Belfast's Holy Land with blowheads, acid trippers and E'd-up-clubbers induced nothing but mind-numbing boredom. [continues 720 words]
